Book Review: A Guide to the Japanese Stage

This book (written by three prominent theatre practitioners) covers several sections – Bunraku, traditional Japanese puppetry; Kubuki, song/dance/acting is what the word translates as; Noh, a style of performance which incorporates mask work; Kyogen, a type of farce; and contemporary theatre, including musicals, European and American plays, opera, and a blend of traditional and contemporary.

This book review was written in early 2006 for my theatre publication. As such, it does not specifically reference the content in the book about Japanese puppetry, but gives an overview of the book as a whole. The book itself covers a range of Japanese theatrical styles, not just bunraku, which is why the following is an overview. You should also read the companion book review (Traditional Japanese Theater) here.

Inside the book. Click on the image for a larger view.

My parents bought me A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge by Ronald Cavaye, Paul Griffith, Akihiko Senda  on their recent trip to Japan, a small A5 size book about 300 pages long. I had sent my parents over there (not specifically to buy me book obviously!) with a long list of puppetry books you can’t find in Australia , and they came back with this book – it wasn’t even on my list, despite using Amazon to track the best books around. The book probably retails around $50 if it were available in Australia.

Each section of Kabuki, Bunraku and Noh/Kyogen (Noh and Kyogen are presented during the one performance, however, Kyogen is developing its own separate showing) goes into some detail on the history of the style, the structure of the performance, actors/directors/writers/theatres, the types of plays and characters found in those plays, costume/makeup/wigs, puppets and mask (for Bunraku and Noh respectively) and the style of stage used for each convention. There are short synopses for each section, and in the contemporary theatre chapter there is a short sub-chapter on the different styles incorporated into traditional theatre, the companies/writers/directors involved and a section on Buto (a Japanese form of modern dance).

Inside the book. Click on the image for a larger view.

While each chapter is informative, the writers seem to place an expectation on the reader: that you know either Japanese history or Japanese culture already. Some phrases you wish you had a Japanese phrasebook or dictionary on handy, but this doesn’t impact the understanding of the text. Rather, it almost makes you want to go out and buy more books on Japan. Certainly, at the end of A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge, I had/have resolved to go out and attend as much traditional Japanese theatre as I can. I once saw a performance of King Lear at the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company – yes, the one in England ), that is actually mentioned in this book, which was a coproduction between the RSC and Japanese directors/designers/performers. The part of the fool was played by a great Japanese actor, with such agility (not necessarily physically, but that was the feeling you got), it was astonishing. In fact, despite my loathing of all things Shakespeare, this is one of my top ten best productions I have seen. And so, having attended that and greatly enjoyed it, this book added to my fascination of Japanese theatre.

Nevertheless, there was one major drawback for this book – it was over-abundant with information about Kabuki, but short on all the other sections. Kabuki rated about 100 pages of text, while each other section rated about 30 pages each. Having a fascination with the puppetry more than the other styles, I was disappointed when the chapter seemed to stop just when it got interesting. This too was effected in the photos. While there was a short chapter at the front of the book with a few colour photos of each style, Kabuki managed to get its own short colour photo section, while all the other styles were reduced to black and white photos all the way through the rest of the book. Flip to the inside back flap of the book, and read the writers’ biogs. And suddenly, ah ha! It makes sense. The writers seem to all have a history in Kabuki, and obviously spent more time on what they knew, rather than what they didn’t know.

Inside the book. Click on the image for a larger view.

This aside, I found that reading A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge was easy to understand, but not very detailed in actual descriptions of what makes each style unique. Bunraku, well, that’s puppetry. But the difference between Kabuki and Noh is either too refined to explain to us newcomers, or the authors simply presumed that we know already.

As I said, this made me simply want to find out more. The best part is that in the back of the book, there is a listing of all the companies in Japan (with phone numbers, email, website and snail mail addresses) sorted by style of Japanese theatre, with calendars of when to go see the shows during the year, how much the seats cost (roughly, as prices do tend to change), and for some, a layout of the seating plan. There are also contacts of certain famous writers/directors, and a list of DVDs available of performances (although the contacts for the DVD sellers are in Japan).

All in all, I think A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge is an excellent introduction to Japanese theatre, and a handy guide for travellers interested in seeing some performances. I recommend it those who want to find out about contemporary theatre in Japan too, as it introduces recent concepts and developments in the art form.

ADDED LATER: a year later, and having seen a bunraku performance, I can say that this book - and the ‘companion‘ - were better than first perceived. The information gleaned from the books allowed me greater insights into the style, traditions, music, costumes, blocking, and stories of the bunraku performances. When at the performance, I found that I suddenly understood intricate and subtle symbolistic gestures, made by the musicians, the narrator, and the performers. Looking back on this review, I was perhaps correct in being so critical; but had I not seen a bunraku performance, it would not be clearer the difficulties in defining Japanese styles in theatre - especially a niche interest that is puppetry. More than that, A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge is a great resource as an introduction to past and contemporary Japanese theatre, for those who want to perform using the Japanese styles, or for those who simply want to travel, and find out more about current Japanese performances.